LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENTS OF LEGUME BASED FOODS

Slides presented during " The Diversity of end uses for Legumes"

Webinar 4: European legumes in transition 27th April 2021

"Life Cycle assessments of legume based foods"

One of the key objectives of the TRUE project is the environmental assessment of food production pathways. Using ISO standard Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology, we have compared the environmental footprint of legume-based alternatives to wheat pasta, beef meatballs, beef burger patties and mayonnaise with their traditional counterpart. In all cases except for mayonnaise, the legume-based alternatives performed significantly better over a wide range of parameters, particularly those associated with eutrophication and global warming burdens, where savings of the order of 80 to 90% could be achieved. Scenarios for legume replacement of traditional food items have also been investigated. In the case of pea-based meatballs, if just 5% of Germany’s beef consumption could be replaced with plant-based products, then annual savings of 80Mt of CO₂e per year could be achieved, equivalent to 1% of Germany’s total CO₂e emissions. In the case of the pea/soy protein burgers, a more processed legume-based product, replacing all beef burgers consumed in UK with the plant-based alternative could reduce CO₂e emissions by up to 11Mt of CO₂e per year, or 2.4% of UK’s total, terrestrial CO₂e emissions.

Presented by : Mike Williams - Trinity College, Dublin